In The Know: The Visayan Forum Foundation Inc.

MULTIAWARDED Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda poses with Sweden’s Queen Silvia after receiving the World’s Children Honorary Award during a ceremony at Grisholm Castle in Mariefred, Stockholm, on April 28, 2011. AFP

Founded by Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda in 1991, the Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (VFFI) is a Manila-based organization that pushes programs and policies to curb modern-day slavery and empower vulnerable migrants such as victims of human trafficking and exploited domestic workers.

With 11 offices in 20 provinces around the country, the VFFI coordinates with authorities to prevent human trafficking and provides support and protection for the victims.

The organization also forges alliances with various organizations and provides resource materials crucial for policy making.

For its work, the VFFI has been cited by the International Labor Organization-International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor and the United Nations Girls Education Initiative as an international best practice.

In 2005, the US Department of State recognized the VFFI as one of the international best practices for its antitrafficking partnership with the Philippine government and private shipping companies.

Oebanda, VFFI founding president and executive director, has also been cited for the impact of her work.

The Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights organization, gave Oebanda the Anti-Slavery Award in 2005. The British government also named Oebanda one of the Modern-Day Abolitionists in the celebration of the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 2007.

In 2008, Oebanda was named by the US Department of State as one of its Heroes Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery in its Trafficking in Persons Report. In 2010, the US Department of Labor presented her the first Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor.

Oebanda was also one of the honorary awardees of the 2011 World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child, and was recently presented the Prix Caritas Award 2011 by Caritas Switzerland for her fight against child prostitution, child trafficking and child labor. Inquirer Research

Sources: Visayan Forum Foundation; Inquirer Archives